BODY: For 43 years, Yasu has been the most notorious name in Japanese gaming without ever saying a word. That changes in 2027.
G-MODE has announced the first wave of voice casting for Portopia Serial Murder Case 2: Burial of Oblivion (続ポートピア連続殺人事件:忘却の埋葬), the sequel-slash-remake of Yuji Horii's 1983 detective adventure, coming to Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch and Steam on March 4, 2027. Veteran actor Tomoaki Maeno takes the role of Yasuhiko Mano — "Yasu" — the player's loyal assistant and, in the original, the murderer.
The reveal came packaged as "Investigation File: Yasuhiko Mano," one of six case files that make up the game. That structure is the project's central conceit: the 1983 case is remade in full, with five additional investigations built around it. Also cast are Yuuka Hiiragi as Fumie Sawaki, Katsuya Fukunishi as Toshiyuki Yamakawa, Kousuke Echigoya as Rokusuke Komiya, and Kana Ueda — Rin Tohsaka in the Fate series — as Okoi Yuuhi.
Horii returns as original creator and executive director, with character designs by Kyoji Asano, whose credits include the Attack on Titan anime and Your Lie in April. Pre-orders are now open through G-MODE's official store ahead of a December 2026 cutoff, bundling replica autographs and scenario scripts. Pricing runs ¥7,678 for the standard physical edition, ¥9,878 for the limited edition and ¥4,800 for the download — and the physical Switch releases include the original Famicom game.
The insider take
"Yasu did it" (ヤスが犯人) occupies a place in Japanese pop culture roughly equivalent to "Rosebud is the sled" — a spoiler so thoroughly absorbed that it became a punchline decades before most of today's players were born. G-MODE knows this, which is why leading the cast announcement with Yasu is a deliberately loaded move rather than a routine PR drop. The 1983 original was pure text on a PC-88, released three years before Horii's Dragon Quest reshaped the industry; giving its culprit an actual voice is the kind of detail Japanese fans will scrutinize line by line. The real question the six-file structure raises here is whether the remake expects you to already know the answer.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).